I’d made him want.
And now… he was forced to spend the next twenty-eight days with me. I guess the only positive out of the situation was that he was human. I had no effect on him.
Because if I did, he’d have already fallen.
Humans were weak.
Slaves to their emotions.
Dark One or not, in an entirely human state, Cassius wouldn’t have stood a chance against me.
But he continued to do so.
Which made the rejection sting all that much more—as a Dark One, I couldn’t even entice him.
“Stephanie,” Cassius barked from somewhere deeper in the house. “We don’t have all night.”
Scowling, I stomped after him. I could last the next three and a half weeks with him. I just needed to keep my heart on lockdown—just like he was doing.
If a measly human could do it.
There was no reason I couldn’t.
Cassius
Pompeii 79AD
“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” Eva screamed at me as I moved farther up the mountain. “Cassius, STOP!”
The ice in my veins rose to the surface as a flash of lightning lit up the sky. “And what would you have me do? Save them all? Only to have them turn on us? Destroy us? They are an abomination, Eva! They. Must. Die.” White filled my vision as the screams of people in the city started to multiply.
“Earthquake.” I spoke the word in ancient Aramaic, the tongue of Angels.
The ground shook beneath my feet.
I kept walking.
Eva followed.
Finally, I turned on my heel. “Do not make me destroy you, Vampire!”
Her eyes closed, and then she held out her hands, palms facing toward me. “Cassius, most of them are innocent. Will you destroy them? The children? The mothers? The grandmothers?”
“If I let one go free, one who is infected…”
“Then choose, Cassius,” Eva said in a challenging voice. “Choose who goes free, save a few. All I ask is that you save some.”
“You misjudge our relationship, Vampire.” I hissed out the lie as the air took on a bitter taste from my own inability to admit the truth. “Only you would ask this of me. Notice how the rest of the council members have already fled the city, and yet here you stand.”
She lifted her head. “Here I stand.”
“Damn it, woman.” I closed my eyes for a few brief seconds, allowing a sliver of humanity to slip through. God, it burned, nearly slicing me in half as my Angel blood roared with anger at the weakness. Strength and weakness, could not co-exist, not for long. Eventually my angelic blood would destroy what humanity I had left.
I’d felt it since the beginning of time.
I knew.
One day.